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Children who have flu jab 'three times more likely to need hospital care'

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Children who have the standard flu jab are three times more likely to end up in hospital

Children who have the standard flu jab are three times more likely to end up in hospital. The vaccine is also useless at preventing the disease, new research has discovered.

Children with asthma are especially vulnerable after being given the annual flu vaccine, TIV (trivalent inactivated flu vaccine). Children aged from six months to 18 years are recommended to have the vaccine each year.

Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester made the discovery after studying 263 children who had had flu, and whether or not they had been vaccinated.

They discovered that children who had been vaccinated were three times more likely to need hospital care than those not vaccinated, and the risk was even higher in children who had asthma. It was also clear that the vaccine had not protected the children against flu, the researchers told a conference this week.

(Source: 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego).